Uk totally messed up - is anything good?

[tallcurvey]

The UK is an utter mess.
i can’t think of a single thing that is better than a decade ago.

when will people wake up and see brexit and the current government have ruined the country?

is their anything that’s better?

There'll always have to be a lot of "common ground" in the middle, because as coined by Tony Blair with his "Mondeo Man", it's the centre where elections are won and last, i.e. the floating voter. It's no good appealing to the lifelong Labour or Tory voters because it takes a juggernaut to get them to change their voting habits which needs something very special to make happen. It's those in the middle who are the ones who'll change from one party to another so that is where any political party genuinely wanting to win an election has to concentrate their efforts. You can't go too far to the right or left because then you alienate the floating voters!

Well again I agree with you there too, but the point I was making was that it makes very difference whether we have a tory or a labour government now. Whomever is in power is following the dictat of the relevant civil servant - and which dictat the civil servant follows depends on the issue, and whether foreign policy or domestic policy. Either way, the policies of the last twenty years and backwards have been disastrous for most people. Why? That is the question. What is root cause of the diabolical policies?

The whole 2 party thing is a distraction - more time is taken up trying to win votes than to resolve problems effectively.

Maybe we should be voting for individual ministers, and also for policies on a regular basis, not for parties. Or have parties for ideological reasons, but form acting governments in a different way. If there were more expertise at ministerial level, and some sort of fixed term for each minister, there would be less chance of blindly following dictats. For example, if foreign ministers were required some expertise in history/geopolitics at a far deeper level than they have now so they don't simply blindly follow civil servants with dubious influences; education secretary required to have some academic expertise as well as managerial expertise; same in relation to health - some expertise in real life; and so on. So maybe have a pool of peer elected ministers and change how ministers are voted in from that pool - so change requirements in relation to what qualifications they need for each role, what expertise they need, and also fix longevity of post - eg make the standard appointment for five years, so giving a decent amount of time is necessary to make decent changes. This would increase competence. People having a say in policies would be more effective democracy than just voting in a party. Make commons a time for constructive debate to resolve problems rather than childish tory vs labour spats - making childish personal attacks against the rules for a start.

And significantly increase understanding in the general population in relation to the issues and constraints of governance. Not sure how people can vote if they have no idea what governance involves.

it really isn’t.

For the people that live here, that have lived here all their life, if they sit and actually think about it. Go for a walk (especially outside the SE), look around, look at the state of most places. Look at the infrastructure crumbling (literally), try and get a doctors appointment, go and have a look at your local state school (likely it too will be crumbling).

Then go to Spain, France, or Netherlands, even Poland… And do the same… While they have problems, they are not anywhere near the same level of decline.

Northern England has productivity levels that are equal to OLD east Germany! But we seem to just accept it. If we all stopped, and actually looked, and thought about it. We’d see we are declining. We are getting poorer each year, we have no real GDP growth, yet we have net migration of nearly 1 million… That means only 1 thing…. Each and every one of us is getting poorer every year. And by a considerable sum.

If we think that this must stop at some point, that it’s just a cycle, we are in for a rude awakening. Before WWI, Argentina was one of the richest nations on earth, 70 years later it wasn’t even in the top 50. To think it cannot happen to us is arrogance.

It is happening to us, we’re not looking.

Well you can thank the Tories for that can't you, like it or not the fact is Blair was probably the best thing that happened to the UK in generations. I think he was pimped over the gulf war and he should never have got involved and he should have nationalised the railways, water and power....but other than that he changed Britain for the better....just a pitty the Tories and the lib dems wrecked it

We're the boiling frog aren't we. A long slow decline so that people have forgotten that things used to work.

The Tories ruined the country by austerity, then destroyed the economy with Truss and Brexit, and then record migration. Yes it’s a bloody disaster, how many of us recognise how very very expensive it will be to get back all we have lost? I don’t think we can fathom it. The UK looks poor, dirty and shabby. It’s neglected along with most of its people. I hope we can pull together and deliver something better.

Labour seem to be intent on lowering business confidence so that won't help

@Meadowfinch

its a shame you didn’t agree.
as you are completely wrong.

@bombastix

you are right.

@Octomama

having lived in other countries I have to say you are very wrong.

Yeah there are issues and life is shit for millions

BUT

It isn't the winter of discontent

It isn't 1914-8 or 1939-45

There's no plague, no cardboard city, no 3 million unemployed, globally one of the highest GDPs per capita and life expectancy.

We just like complaining.

^

Here we go again

Race to the bottom

Yes it's not the bloody blitz but Christ alive, homes should be affordable, daycare should be subsided, education should be better and the NHS needs reforming!

And that's just the basics. What's about heavier taxes on second home owners, and the bloody landed gentry who we all still bend the knee to??

God help us

The quote by Alexander Tytler in the early 1800s has always stuck with me:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy"

The UK and other Western democracies are basically in managed slow decline and the blame largely lies with the voters who will consistently vote for whichever political party promises them more stuff that they don't have to pay for.

This inevitably leads to higher debt (which cuts into Government spending), leading to higher taxes to pay for it leading to lower economic growth and repeat.

The voters then blame the "other side" for causing this mess without acknowledging that their side stuffed up as well.

Unfortunately the solution is for voters to get less stuff but in a democracy no one is going to vote for that so the managed slow economic decline loop just continues.

This I absolutely agree with.

Don’t you mean some voters to get less stuff? I mean those who take out more than they contribute? Other than people who are disabled, everyone needs to work, pay tax, abide by the laws, etc. If you are a NEET for instance then life should be made harder for you and the alternatives to work made less palatable.

@Teentaxidriver

"Other than people who are disabled, everyone needs to work, pay tax, abide by the laws, etc. If you are a NEET for instance then life should be made harder for you and the alternatives to work made less palatable."

Well if you do that then you will suddenly find that very large numbers of the NEETS become long term sick , disabled mentally or physically or become full time carers for others that are (or claim to be).

we see that now. Tories made unemployment benefit lower than sickness benefit…. What happened?

People moved over to signing on sick.

Thats easily fixed with the right political will though. Just limit what sickness and disabilities are entitled to sick benefit and remove the cliff edge for when people return to work.

Also invest in training and improving opportunities for people already here. Business relies too much on cheap immigration because “we don’t have the skills”… But we have 10 million economically inactive people…

And how has the country got to a situation where we don’t train people the skills we need? Some of the entrance requirements for basic trades like brick laying for example are ludicrous (why does a 16 year old need a grade 3 in English, science and maths to be a bricklayer)?

I can guarantee that the Indians, Pakistanis and Vietnamese that are getting visas won’t have a grade 3 in English.

It makes no sense.

@Ac380

"It makes no sense."

What particularly upsets me is that those in favour of legal migration are effectively writing off 9 million economically inactive as unemployable.

You are absolutely right though- it is economically insane to pay 9 million people benefits and at the same time import over 10 million people into the UK since 2010 (900k in 2023 alone) to do the unfilled jobs.

I can promise that if the Government started paying nurses decent salaries and care homes paid decent salaries then they would have no trouble at all recruiting UK nationals to do these jobs

The quote is interesting. It is only just now that I have remembered that I once encountered something called 'Hegel's Dialectic', iirc, so I'm away to look it up.

You lost me at pointing the finger at the current government - the tories ran this country into the ground for 14 years ffs

The only thing that I've found that works as it should is our local recycling centre which is well organised and runs like clockwork. Everything else public service wise is fucked tbh.

And where is all the money going to come from to pay all of these huge salaries, plus training etc?
People scream blue murder at the merest whiff of having to pay more tax.

@beguilingeyes "And where is all the money going to come from to pay all of these huge salaries, plus training etc?
People scream blue murder at the merest whiff of having to pay more tax."

That's the point, we all have to pay more tax, at least for a short period while the mess is sorted out. And not just the 'high earners' either. Tories increased taxes on high earners a lot over the past 14 years and cut it for the lower earners. Odd because they normally do the opposite. But we either carry on with the decline, or accept that we ALL need to pay a bit more.

That won't happen though, as @1dayatatime quoted, no one votes for higher taxes. All it needs is for a charlatan to come along and say it's all fine and we can cut taxes for everyone, have public services like Denmark & Sweden and we can give everyone a free Unicorn too.

So, the decline will continue, to the point where now the only way the last Government could get a bit of growth was to import more people by making immigration very easy and very cheap. Import millions of people, earning very low wages which gives a short term lift in total GDP, but ultimately, we all get poorer as the small amount of extra tax brought in doesn't cover the costs of the extra strain on public services.

UK is fucked for the foreseeable future basically!

Pushing for higher tax isn’t cost free either. You can see it impact the private sector already, which will reduce public funds.

We probably have to wait until the ridiculously overpaying contracts the Tories created for things like asylum hotels and children's homes to run out before the country has any money again.

It's ridiculous that Tory mates are becoming multi-millionaires off our taxes by charging astronomical sums for basic services.

£9k per week for the care of a single child is daylight robbery.

@EasternStandard
”
Pushing for higher tax isn’t cost free either. You can see it impact the private sector already, which will reduce public funds.“

No one ever said it is cost free. And it won’t reduce public funds, not a single one of the many analysis has noted that as a likely outcome.

But doing nothing is also not cost free. All the broken waste water treatments plants, all the crumbling schools with RAAC, the fact not a single new reservoir has been built, anywhere, for 35 years, despite population increasing over 10 million in that time, the crumbling hospitals. That is all a result of trying to keep costs down and ‘taxes low’.

And it didn’t work! We didn’t see increased investment by private sector (the opposite), we didn’t see increased GDP per capita (it fell), we haven’t seen improvements to productivity (it’s falling), we haven’t seen increased wages and ‘a high wage economy’ (we’ve fewer apprenticeships and need immigration to provide skills) and we’ve got 10 million economically inactive. continuing with the status quo isn’t an option unless you accept managed decline.

As a business owner myself, i know the burden that has been added, but reality is and despite the screaming, it’s a relatively small addition to costs in the grand scheme of things. Big retail are shouting, but that’s because they rely on dirt cheap labour and it’s now not quite as cheap as it was. I’m sure they will pass it on, but if it means that kids can go to school without threat of a ceiling caving in, nurses can work without breathing in asbestos, or if a 13yr old can get a referral for an “urgent” spinal condition in less than 40 weeks (this is the estimate my 13yr old has been told today BTW), isn’t that a price worth paying?